Avengers World #8

Background

Now the Universe is safe (until the next time it's at risk at least), the Avengers are assisting S.H.I.E.L.D. with the day to day issues of Earth. Earth has plenty of existing threats, including ones we've not seen for a little while.

Sent on a mission by S.H.I.E.L.D., Nightmask, Starbrand, Spider-Woman and Hawkeye were exploring an abandoned town in Italy when they got transported to a City of the Dead. Once there, Starbrand could hear the voices of the dead cry out to him and these call him away, leaving his team-mates to fight off the creatures appearing around them. Starbrand is ultimately trapped by the ruler of the City of the Dead, Morgan le Fay.

Story 'Avengers meet Euroforce'

Spider-Woman, Hawkeye and Nighmask are struggling to fight off the creatures attacking since their most powerful team-mate upped and left. Nightmask manages to bury the river from which their attackers are coming from, stopping their progress, but not before Hawkeye is injured. Fortunately, Adam can detect “friends” nearby so the team track them down and find the new Euroforce – a team of European heroes made up of Tumult, Sliver, Tiger, Swordswoman and Mikhail Zamorska (the baby killer!) who are led by former Avenger, the Black Knight. Apparently, this is the team the Avengers were sent into Italy to find.

Meanwhile, and in true villain fashion, Morgan le Fay has been giving Kevin a speech criticising humanity for looking forward to the future and forgetting their past. She has also been watching the Avengers meeting with the Euroforce via a crystal ball in her Palace. All this whilst preparing her army of the dead for war.

Back with the good guys and Sliver has managed to patch Hawkeye up just in time for Morgan's army to attack. Unfortunately, her army is pretty big and as well as fighting the Avengers, they are also attacking sites around the world of the living. Morgan wants humanity to suffer for forgetting their past and focussing on a future that they don't deserve.

General Comments

Frankly, this is yet another set up issue but, whilst the story doesn't really progress that much, at least we have something novel in the form of a new hero team. This seems to be something that the Avengers World writers are setting up – hero teams from other countries around the world. In Avengers World #7, Falcon met the Chinese equivalent of the Avengers (the Ascendants) and now we have the new Euroforce. As someone based outside of America, I must say this is a welcome, and realistic, move by Marvel, to extend their sights beyond America. It stands to reason in the Marvel Universe they should be powered individuals all over the planet. It makes sense that an American company sets it's stories in America but just the acknowledgement that other countries may have superheroes and villains is nice. Certainly puts the "World" into Avengers World. I hope Euroforce will proove to be a little more heroic in any upcoming issues as they seemed quite impulsive and reckless in this issue (and presumably in their backstory, else why else they need the Avengers' help?). It'd be a shame after introducing a new team from Europe that they turn out to be a bunch of incompetents that need the Americans' help all the time – that'd be worse than having no team at all!

Back to the story, and to be honest not much really happens. Morgan le Fay cements herself as the big bad and moves her troops into attack – but that's it really. Apart from her monologue about humanity not deserving its future, nothing is really revealed as to her motives for this attack on the world (no doubt it'll be the standard world domination, but we'll have to wait and see – I hope it's something more).

Just like previous issues, I liked how this comic brought back a few faces from Marvel's history without new readers needing a knowledge of them and used the characters to facilitate the introduction of new faces alongside. Morgan's history with Jessica is nicely used, as is the inclusion of former Avenger the Black Knight as the leader of Euroforce, which was also well explained (he may not be European but the Ebony Blade, which gives him his powers, is).

Finally, the art and as usual its good. Nice use of colours, especially when the army of the dead began to attack.

Overall Rating

Things are moving forward, but not at a brilliant pace so I can't really score this comic more than average.

Footnote

You may have noticed this has been the first Avengers review for a while. This is because we have decided to focus the reviewing of team titles to only those that feature Spider characters as opposed to all of them.